Page 8 - Christopher Patrick Sutton News Today

Want you to think about what you planned and what you did that night, you can be assured that with my blindness, every minute of every day, that i will not forget you. >> all rise, please. >> reporter: with that the murder trial of christopher sutton could begin. now, florida law again, now prosecutors could use the sworn testimony in court of both of the girlfriend and the hit man. but even with that, the case was as prosecutor kathleen hogue knew all too well, rather weak. >> this was a circum...

Five or six different names. and one of those came back to garrett cop. who was he talking to? on the 22nd, there was probably, i want to say maybe 13 phone calls, if memory serves me right. there were made between garrett cop and chris suttons cell phones. a lot of calls. a lot of calls. keith morrison: lots of calls, on the day of the murder. quite probably meant nothing at all, of course. still, garrett kopp was 20, a frequent visitor around the house. he didnt seem to have a job or any direc...

Read to him, and was convinced. i think that i was somewhere in between being completely outraged and upset and somewhere where i knew that he had done it. keith morrison: but melissa, so grief-stricken, wasnt focused on who did it so much as what she had lost. a lot of people chase the killer, and i think i chased missing my mom. newscaster: police are looking for 25-year-old christopher patrick sutton. keith morrison: and christopher was nowhere to be found. day after day, as police looked for...

One, to seek justice no matter what that might mean for his son. and the other-- perhaps even more impossible-- to simply see again. coming up. garrett kopps confession should be enough to put him behind bars. but did prosecutors have enough to convict christopher sutton? this was a circumstantial case, extremely circumstantial. really based on motive. keith morrison: when dateline continues. [dramatic music] for mild-to-moderate eczema? it can be used almost everywhere on almost everybody. the ...

Nobody knows what really happened except for him and garrett. thank you. thats what ive been saying. keith morrison: so why not just play a tape of the interrogation? well, they couldnt. the police didnt record a word of their long talk with juliette driscoll. she said, certainly he said those things, but whether he did it or not is up in the air, as far as im concerned. right. and i think that gives a rise to a major reasonable doubt in this case. keith morrison: but remember, garrett kopp, the...

Had an order signed by a judge that said when you turn 18, if you havent completed the course, youre going to stay, which infuriated christopher sutton. why did you decide to keep him there when he turned 18? we had concerns that he wasnt ready to return. he had not, quote, "graduated the program." how did he feel about that? he was quite upset. he wanted to come home. he wanted things his way. he always wanted things his way. keith morrison: but this time, finally, tough love seemed to work. ch...

I didnt even see the gun. but in an instant, bam, and then next thing you knew, i woke up and i was on the floor. john sutton answered the questions as if the defendant sitting before him was a man he had never met, as if this was not the boy he had raised from birth. neither father nor son displayed the slightest emotion. --for an instant. it doesnt make any sense to get on the witness stand and cry in front of the jury. it can cause a mistrial. so i dealt with it. i did what i had to do. keith...

And who did he finger? garrett kopp. what happened, if anything, with your relationship with garrett kopp after he was arrested? i didnt speak to him for a while. or he didnt speak to me, i should say, for a while. was he mad at you? yes. keith morrison: so was it payback time, now? yes, says christopher, it must have been. and thats his theory of the murder. christopher said he had nothing to do with it, told the jury he never asked kopp to kill his parents. kopp made it all up. the police had ...

A son charged with hiring the hit man who murdered his mother, blinded his father. and here he sat, apparently confident, highly prepared, ignoring, most of the time, the surviving members of his family a scant few feet away. you know, we locked eyes, but i have nothing to say to him. keith morrison: melissas sat with their father-- their father-- front row seat. prosecutor karen kahgan told the jury a horror story, the states version of what happened the night of the murder. the man for whom th...

Sutton. when i heard his date during the trial, i remembered the joy of bringing my son home just like mr. sutton had. so at this time, as to count one, mr. sutton, the court poses a sentence of life in prison, without the possibility of parole. >> reporter: that was that. barring a successful appeal. christopher sutton will die in prison. a result he found so shocking he decided he needed to explain that they got it so very wrong. >> reporter: the verdict did seem to be a big surprise. >> yeah,...